Soundtrack to the Story
by Speak
Summary: Draco chooses his side, Harry chooses his battles, and both find that what they always believed true is now a distant lie. HD [slash]


The Soundtrack to The Story  
  
~Speak  
  
Summary: With Lucius suddenly gone and the war beginning, Draco choses his side, Harry choses his battles, and both find that neither knew all they thought they did. H/D  
  
Rating: R  
  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
  
Length: hopefully long. sadly, my attention span is often just the length of my review page. but i'm can be quick with the updates under the proper circumstances :)  
  
A/N: This first chapter is slow, but it's just to give a bit of groundwork. More like a short little chapterlet- if there are more, they'll be longer and have actual Things happening in them (aah.) Be nice and bear with me? This is my first real HP fic... I'll ask you to forgive me in advance for breaking structure, I guess, if I do... note, action and an actual plot will be forthcoming. ::nods::  
  
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Chapter 1  
  
Everything's Changed, Nothing is the Same.  
  
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Side A  
  
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It was snowing outside, the diaphanous veil falling like a cleansing rain, a grey blindness to soothe the tired visions of a long autumn. Harry leaned against the window sill and stared out into the air which hung heavy with the promise of a storm, his eyes half-lidded and heavy; he nodded forward, but would not sleep. His forehead struck his knees, drawn up to his chest, and he sat there in an upright fetal position staring at his feet and his worn jeans. He could feel his diaphragm collapse suddenly, without rhythm, as if every exhalation was his body failing.  
  
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"He hasn't slept in days."  
  
Hermione had a troubled look about her face. "Are you sure?"  
  
"Positive. I went to wake him up early for Quidditch practice this morning, before dawn- he was just lying with his eyes open in bed, on top of the covers."  
  
"Poor Harry. I hope he isn't sick. Sleep deprivation can cause weakened immune system, and affect the moods, and..."  
  
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Right now, for some reason, no one was in the Gryffindor dormitory. It wasn't Quidditch and it wasn't class, just everyone had decided to mercifully desert the place, and leave it empty for Harry, a promised sanctuaty. He smiled, tracing a subdued ecstasy that had just alighted in his heart. This was good.  
  
He didn't know what was wrong. He'd been keeping to himself, mostly, since he'd gone back to school. Ron had collected him for the last few weeks of summer, and those had been strained but thrilling as they always were. Something had changed, though, something had... and he couldn't put his finger on what exactly was keeping him from drifting off. Because so much had altered, it was almost like he wasn't Harry Potter anymore, so why bother wondering 'what changed?'. It was easier to just believe he was a new boy, an unexplained stranger that had taken the place of the old boy who had been effaced. And in this new and changing state of things, with fear growing on all sides, no one had noticed. It was best.  
  
This new boy has no family. Less so than the pseudo-family "Harry Potter" had had; he wouldn't go back to that "home" that was bound to him, that he nursed his invulnerability from for painful weeks each year, that wouldn't happen again, not this year, no more years ending with Dursleys... Should I die next year, he began to say in his mind, but couldn't even get past those words- one year from now was like another age. It would never exist, no, it would never come to be. He shook his head. God.  
  
The temporary relief of his being free, that was no longer temporary. Why? What do you expect? I have simply accepted that life exists only for this moment here and now, and I can't escape that, no matter how hard I try. Because Sirius is dead, and will forever be, but more importantly, in this moment, he does not exist, and if I let myself, his name can ring hollow in my head, something meaningless now, and cast aside. More than that. An omen. A symbolic love that's not no more than concept.  
  
But I love it. Still though it's gone.  
  
The new boy has these "friends", but they're attatched to this other boy, this charming valiant fourteen-year-old hero, scrawny and well-meaning, and from a good family. Beleaguered by rumors, he always shines through, his glory dimmed but fragile conscience always untouchable and clean. How could people like him if he didn't even know who he was? Everything he'd beed was still there, but not intact, strained and about to break. He shook his head again.  
  
His pale fingers moved, released their white-knuckled hold on his legs. And he hurt. And his forehead wrinkled for the hundredth time.  
  
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"He doesn't eat much either."  
  
"I'm really worried."  
  
"You think I'm not? I have to see him every morning and every night giving me that... look." Ron paled as he said this; it was a look to pale any face- a hollow-eyed and thoroughly vacant look, the kind that comes when the person is done pleading.  
  
"Has he talked to you?"  
  
"Not really."  
  
Hermione's mouth went crooked with jealousy. Ron flushed.  
  
"Well we practically live together."  
  
Her gaze fell momentarily. But more practically she offered, "what'd he say?"  
  
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It was breakfast. That was why they were all gone, they were all downstairs eating breakfast. So he'd missed it again, he thought. Damn. Though he didn't feel at all hungry, nor did he want to be a part of those long rows of students consuming gruel. Though for the most part everyone didn't look at him anymore, those who knew him stared more, and were genuinely concerned- it was uncomfortable. Unlike the stares generated from printed rumor, this struck deep, and Harry was guilty when Hermione sent him those long mournful gazes and Ron apologetically turned pink and furrowed his brow, unable to change things.  
  
He still didn't like missing breakfast, it was too reminiscent of summer. He pulled himself down from the window sill and stretched as he walked towards the bed.  
  
He felt like a different person.  
  
And he stripped off his heavy sweater, knitted by Mrs. Weasley, and his t-shirt, and then his jeans and his underwear, and he pulled from his trunk new underwear, and his clothes and school robes and put them all on, having bathed yesterday morning, or the night before last, or during lunch or study hall last afternoon. Perhaps he had bathed at all those times, he'd been washing more and more, but not in the obsessive psychotic way. No one was ever in the Quidditch showers when games and practices weren't ending. No one knew he went there.  
  
No one knew he entered the hidden passageways, but stayed in the tunnels for an our or two every few days.  
  
No one knew he wandered the dungeons in his father's cloak, or sat underneath it in the library after everyone had left.  
  
No one knew he went to the room of requirements and found that it remained, for him, a broom closet, and that he hid in it for lengths of time when no one was expecting him to be around.  
  
And breathed.  
  
It was always someone else who was the curiosity, or the clue to whatever wrong was to be righted, whatever evil scourged from the halls of this iconic place of Good, the school where he lived. This time, it was him though, he cocked his head, that's not right.  
  
His fingers nimbly fastened his robes- he smoothed the creases out of them and stood up straight, ran his fingers through his hair and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. He always looked nervous from behind his glasses. Did others think this?  
  
Maybe I will go downstairs, he thought. Or maybe up. I don't want to think any more right now. Tonight's been a long night, I'll find my class and wait for everyone else there- no, that's strange. I'll wait til they leave the dining hall, and join them on the way. I'll smile at Ron because he's been edgy around me, and I'll touch Hermione's arm because she's treating me like a porcelaine doll that makes her weep, I know, I've seen her red eyes. I should talk to her. I will.  
  
He coughed once. The measure of time now was abstract, but he knew it had to be soon, soon, soon.  
  
I'll fix everything today.  
  
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Intermission  
  
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Draco had his books piled neatly on the table by his bed, the curtains drawn and the covers tucked immaculate. He emerged from the Slytherine dorms in conspicuously flawless robes, pressed and jet black, unworn, head bowed. He carried two texts and three rolls of parchment under one arm, his wand in the other, drawn for no reason save he felt like it, and no one asked questions.  
  
No one needed to, for all relevant truths were self-evident in the way he ran his fingers through his hair, or so he hoped.  
  
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'What it is like to live a lie,' he wrote in indecipherably narrow handwriting on the parchment on his pillow, one curtain on his bed open to the empty side of the room, and the window, for air.  
  
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Side B  
  
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He made his way with sweeping steps down the stone corridor, through the common room hung in cold silver and artificial green, and up the spiralling stairway and down the halls. The dining hall was just filling up, but he entered it alone, a whirlwind of animosity circling his willowy form, a hanging threat. He slipped into the bench, and then stared at the bowl of food.  
  
"I hate this."  
  
Crabbe, or someone, grunted in agreement, but Draco ignored them this time around, and swiftly looked in another direction, ignoring the mess of breakfast before him. Today was Monday, the second Monday of the month, and today was usually the day he'd write home, but with only mother there, it was hardly necessary. She had never been insistant on his letters, always Lucius had- he doubted she read them. He doubted she was allowed. The other Slytherines had their letters tucked into their robes. One by one they'd all visit the owlry today or tonight, in little clusters sending their dark birds home with News.  
  
Those whose parents were in Azkaban, though, they just waited for their News. They didn't send any out anymore. No, they were to assume the position of resentfulness, poised and bitter, and ever more unpleasant for the time would come to strike. They were now the posterboys. He heaved a sigh.  
  
But it was nice not having a Letter.  
  
Pansy's voice was a shrill cascading tremolo that was utterly too piercing for the hour. "I believe he has some horrible disease," she relished the words and ran her tongue across her cream-coloured lips, sticky with gloss, leering across the table in what Draco knew was his general direction. "That's why he's been in his room and hasn't shown his dirty little head for two weeks. Oooh I hope it's something dreadful..."  
  
Yes, Draco thought, it was definitely time for a change.  
  
A shiver of dread ran up his spine, but spurring it was anticipation. What if. What if it works? A pressure arose between his eyes, behind his eyeballs, and he breathed it out slowly and tensed, shoulders curling in uncharacteristically- he hoped no one was watching him think, he could be all too obvious. And he wanted to be in his room. But it can't be. I've been dreaming for too long, it's all dull now... I should... I should... this isn't real, is it. Or is it? Is it a chance, really? Is it my Chance?  
  
Things this good don't work. All my life what was promising was tainted. I can't trust this, I can't let myself think...  
  
But Draco would let himself think. He'd already started, years ago.  
  
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"It was about a week ago, I walked into the dorm and he was just waiting there, not looking at me, and I asked him what was wrong."  
  
Hermione stared expectantly, and Ron sort of froze for a second. "Well?"  
  
"He said... 'everything'."  
  
"Like what though?"  
  
"I don't KNOW. I didn't know what to say so I just stood there, and he went, 'I dunno, Ron, nothing feels... right.'"  
  
"Did you say anything to that?"  
  
"Well... yeah... I said 'Bloody...' and he kinda laughed at me. What would you have said?"  
  
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The characters at this point could wonder what the subtext to all these scenes has been; in fact, it is continuing. Draco rose from the table and descended upon the hall unnoticed, and stepped into the corridor. Harry stepped out of the Gryffindor tower, but imagining a shadow several feet away, pressed his back against the side of the entrance and breathed softly so as not to wake the picture of the Fat Lady. Neither saw one another right away.  
  
Thought they both spoke to themselves.  
  
"I want to be alone," each said.  
  
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But that wasn't true, Harry thought, shaking his head and screwing shut his eyes, wondering how many precious jeweled minutes he had to himself before the swarms emerged and drew him up to the Divination tower. Someone has to know- because if not- I know what's happening, he thought, and I don't want it to. My courage is failing.  
  
Somehow the thought of the world falling didn't trouble him, it seemed so far off. It was the thought of his own consciousness being snuffed out, shattering in the wake of this transformation, that had him thinking, but only for a second. I can't stay like this, he thought. I can't stay like this, something's going to happen and I won't be ready. And it's terrible. And it's terrible.  
  
Jade peony eyes crushed shut and a shadow cast along his face, he wasn't seen. Draco pressed his back against the stone wall feeling cold, his perfect robes now being pulled into folds, their symmetry destroyed as he slid down, and no one saw him either because no one was yet outside.  
  
Hermione and Ron swallowed concern and warm oatmeal with heavily-lidded eyes not looking at one another anymore, but they'd be sated in a while, and would recieve comforting words, because nothing ever went too wrong, nothing could. Those could not be hurt.  
  
[No love destroyed, but for those who had come seemingly from the maw of death, and merged blindly with the others, indistinct but for the vision they possessed, a secret vision. Marked once, and marked a thousand times. Murdered at birth, and sacrificed.]  
  
It's all too clear that I'm in need of something new, to draw me away from this state of mind. Maybe that would work, he thought, maybe it could.  
  
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(/Chapter 1)  
  
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A/N: There we go then. Leave a comment if you liked it at all (or just like to support the "arts") :)  
  
xxS 


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